Lost in a Moment, and Too Far Away
by Spazztic Revenge
Summary: After all of the fighting, after all of the tragedy, after they had finally won, they were left with one last enemy. This one wouldn't be so easy to eliminate.


Hope held her, his hands in her hair, fingers combing through dulled roseate locks, traces of his own hair color found throughout. Eyes glimpsed along the creases of her face, a telling lineage of heartache and happiness, of agony and joy. He held on tighter as she began to shake and thrash, not accepting the reality she resided in.

Hope had never asked what had happened to her mother. Lightning hadn't told him until much later in their lives. They never thought it was necessary.

It happened slowly, gradually. The date of an appointment here, the name of an old acquaintance there. Until she couldn't quite remember which car was hers in the parking lot of the grocery store or how to turn the coffee pot on. When she went to the doctor, she knew his words before he'd even returned to the room. The past had come back to haunt her.

That night she sat across from Hope at the table, listening to the overview of his day, watched his smile light up his face, saw the love in his eyes as he looked at her. And when he asked her how her day was, she froze. When she had come home, she had had every intention of telling him, but now she couldn't get the words out. Lightning had seen how her mother's illness had torn her family apart. Her mother so lost that she could no longer interpret the world around her. Her father driven to drinking until the day he never came home.

Lightning spoke of visiting Serah, seeing the rambunctious punks that were her nephews, and knocking Snow's face in when the moron couldn't keep his mouth shut. Everything else was kept. She wanted to hold onto this life with all she had.

She hid the pills in the back of her old duffel bag, took them in the silence of night to the tune of Hope's snores.

He wasn't completely oblivious to her moments. There was a day when many words escaped her, slipping right out of her mind mid-sentence. She had said it was just a headache, but Hope knew it was a lie. There were times when they were close, in the shower or in bed or even just together on the couch, when Lightning would suddenly just look at him, slight confusion and fear in her gaze, only for the look to pass as she'd relax back into him.

Hope had come home one day to the shock of finding Lightning in her uniform, polishing the weapon she hadn't touched in ten years. When he announced his presence, she jolted up and pulled her gunblade on him, demanding to know who he was and why he was in her house. When his name and title as her husband didn't spark recognition, he told her of how they met on a crystallized lake. How they'd fought many battles, endured many years plagued by loss and separation. How they'd fallen in love.

He raised her hand and kissed the ring she had failed to notice on her finger. He told her of how they had gotten married and how it was the happiest moment in his life. How he had cried and she had called him a wuss before punching him in the arm and kissing him senseless.

It was only then that Lightning came back to herself, tears in her eyes as she fell apart. Burying her head in his chest, Lightning confessed. That tightly wound façade collapsed, just like the day of their first kiss. Her first confession.

She didn't know why she had kept it from him, why she thought Hope would have been anything like her father. He was always there, bright smile in place and sweet, comforting words on his tongue. Even when he awoke to find her hand on his throat, sharp eyes threatening, Hope eased her into a calm, told her more stories of the grand adventures of a strong soldier and the straggling boy that she had helped protect and strengthen. Of the Warrior Goddess locked away within a cycle of endless battles and the Director ever searching for her over decades and even centuries. Of the Liberator of Souls that had freed her partner, a man turned boy again, from the clutches of their last and final enemy, the God of Light.

It became routine, not quite a comfortable one, for what was happening to her mind could never become something simple or easy to swallow, but they trudged through it. Hope took more time off and stayed with Lightning on her bad days, and even sometimes on the good ones. He never wanted to miss any times with the Lightning he knew from before.

She wasn't a different person, but sometimes Hope could see her as one. That strong-willed, independent woman was trapped away, lost behind a fragility that was almost unnerving to him. But he took her hand and guided Lightning back. Somehow he always managed to pull his Lightning from the depths of her mind.

Until one day he couldn't. His smile wasn't enough. His touch wasn't enough. Even their past was too disguised for her crumbling memory to recognize. She locked herself in the bathroom, wouldn't leave, wouldn't stop screaming for her parents that weren't there, that were no longer alive.

He called Serah, desperation in his tone, frantic tears falling from his cheeks. He couldn't bust open the door, he didn't want to scare her any more than he already had. But Hope feared what Lightning could do to herself, scared and alone. She wasn't alone. He was there. He was always there with her. She just couldn't see him for who he was, as the doctors had explained. As the countless research he'd done had told him.

Serah's voice coaxed her out and Lightning launched herself at her, hugging her and keeping her close. Lightning told her that she would protect her, her baby sister, and that everything would be okay because mom would be home soon. She fell asleep in Serah's lap on the couch as the younger Farron threaded her fingers through her hair.

Hope hated it. He hated her illness. Hated that it was taking his wife away from him. He didn't understand why, after everything they had endured, after they'd finally managed to find each other and the feelings they shared, they couldn't live in peace.

Why were they doomed to always have this chasm between them? Why couldn't they defeat this enemy like they had all the others?

The rest of the night had been hard, and he spent it awake, restless until the first tendrils of light crept towards him through the blinds. It had been the first night in a very long time that he had spent alone in their bed. Long enough that even _he_ could not remember. It ate at him, every second apart.

He stood at the sink, washing the dishes from their last shared meal. It had only been a day since she had last been herself, smiling around a forkful of food as Hope had made one of his godawful jokes, but right then it felt like centuries had past. Once again, he was left to wait. Just like all of those other centuries he had spent waiting for her to come back to him.

A jolt shot through him as he felt her arms around his waist and he melted at the familiar squeeze and the warmth behind it. He turned and was met with a kiss, tender with emotion, yet rough with want. Lightning's usual mix. Her eyes no longer held fear, or that harsh glare of wariness. And Hope laughed. She had come back to him, found him on her own.

In that moment, he found hope.

The episodes became even more frequent from there, the durations lengthening. Hope and Lightning both fought them back, in their own ways. They remained triumphant, together. Every battle was harsh, the war enduring.

Hope watched it end. He didn't know it at the time, but he had seen the last battle through to the end, watched the enemy claim his partner for the last time. He fought, but it never gave her back.

They laid together on their bed, facing each other, hands locked, tight and sweaty. Every breath was cherished, every word. This was how they ended their good days and great moments, though those were few. The light of day gave into night and with it went the Lightning he had always fought for. Beside him now was a woman that would never again see him for who he was. She would never again kiss him or hold him. Because he was no longer her husband, just a strange man that she didn't know.

Hope mourned his loss, grieved into Serah's shoulder as she grieved into his, Snow helpless beside them. And then he continued on, took care of the Lightning that was left, as best he could. He took her harsh words, those horrid glares, the slaps and hits that broke his heart.

He was always hopeful that she would come back, at some point.

Some days, he found he could still calm her. It wasn't the same, and it never would be. But sometimes the stories of their lives would allow her to settle, even if all she saw them as were tales of fiction.

He stayed, because he was her husband even if she couldn't tell anymore. He still loved her. He liked to think that somewhere in there, buried under all of the fog and chaos, she still loved him, too.


End file.
